We’re back with another Z77 motherboard for review, this time around we got one from MSI with their mid-range offering: the Z77A-GD65 for the Intel socket 1155 platform supporting Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge line of processors. With a heavily gamer-centric theme, this motherboard looks rather beastly eager to take on the competition especially now that there’s so much competition in the market it’s getting ever more crowded in the mid-range space. Let’s see if this board can stand out from the crowd and let’s make this showy.
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We’ve come to love MSI’s products a lot and that certainly holds true to their motherboard line. With ASRock managing to eat away their spot in the Big 3 position, MSI has got a lot to prove from this point forward if it wants to compete with the budget-oriented solutions from the current 3rd seat. As we’ve mentioned earlier, we’re checking out MSI’s mid-range offering for the Ivy Bridge market with their Z77A motherboard with the GD65 designation. Let’s check out this Military Class III motherboard and see what’s the product’s got in store for us. Read on.
[toggle title=”SPECIFICATION”]Check out the specs at the product page here.
[/toggle]PHOTO GALLERY
[tabs tab1=”Closer Look” tab2=”Packaging” tab3=”BIOS Walkthrough”] [tab] [one_half last=”no”][singlepic id=9767 w=260 h=180 float=center][/one_half][one_half last=”yes”][singlepic id=9768 w=260 h=180 float=center][/one_half]Certainly a clean looking board with the blue highlights adorning a dark PCB design. MSI has made it known this is their signature styling and it can be seen in a lot of their more recent products.
As usual, we start our tour fr0m the rear IO: from the left we have a legacy PS/2 combo port tacked together with a pair of USB2.0 ports. Next to this is a tiny tack button for the CLR_CMOS function for resetting the board to its default configuration. Very useful spot if you don’t like opening up the case during problematic boot-ups. Moving onwards we have an optical and analog SPDIF ports, an HDMI port, 2 more USB2.0 ports an ethernet port and a pair of USB3.0 ports. Rounding off this area are the DVI, VGA and an 8-channel audio output ports powered by ALC898.
[singlepic id=9770 w=550 h=540 float=center]Here we can see the lower half of this motherboard. From this view we can see that the board isn’t so black after all and some people will find this rather unforgivable. Legacy PCI support has been completely dropped and only three full x16 lanes exist in this board coupled with 2 pairs of PCI-e x1 slots.
[singlepic id=9778 w=550 h=540 float=center]We have a total of eight SATA ports, 4 SATAII and the rest SATAIII (white ones) to accommodate plenty of storage. We can see the front USB3.0 connector just above the SATA ports and it is angled very nicely. Nice touch there, MSI.
[singlepic id=9772 w=550 h=540 float=center]As we’ve come to expect from enthusiast-oriented motherboards, the upper right corner hosts a couple of OC-relevant features such as in the case of the MSI Z77A-GD65 we have voltage checkpoints, onboard power and reset and MSI’s automatic overclocking tool, the OC Genie button.
[singlepic id=9773 w=550 h=540 float=center]MSI is certainly using some very beefy heatsinks and very nice looking at the same time. These babies cool a 12 phase VRM and make the board look cool also. These heatsinks might prove a problem for some who might be using large heatsinks so better check clearance on your cooler before you get this one and vice versa. If you look very closely the heatsink to the left is designed after a gun barrel. Take that Gigabyte. XD
[/tab] [tab] [singlepic id=9764 w=550 h=540 float=center] [singlepic id=9765 w=550 h=540 float=center] [singlepic id=9766 w=550 h=540 float=center]MSI certainly loves to flaunt their Military Class certification around with the bundle including a certificate of sorts. Other than the overclocking hoopla, we have SATA cables, I/O shield, voltage probe connectors, Q-connectors, some documentation and
[/tab] [tab] [singlepic id=9799 w=550 h=540 float=center] [singlepic id=9800 w=550 h=540 float=center] [one_half last=”no”][singlepic id=9801 w=260 h=180 float=center][/one_half][one_half last=”yes”][singlepic id=9802 w=260 h=180 float=center][/one_half] [one_half last=”no”][singlepic id=9803 w=260 h=180 float=center][/one_half][one_half last=”yes”][singlepic id=9804 w=260 h=180 float=center][/one_half] [one_half last=”no”][singlepic id=9805 Â w=260 h=180 float=center][/one_half][one_half last=”yes”][singlepic id=9806 w=260 h=180 float=center][/one_half] [one_half last=”no”][singlepic id=9807 w=260 h=180 float=center][/one_half][one_half last=”yes”][singlepic id=9808 w=260 h=180 float=center][/one_half]MSI UEFI implementation, the ClickBIOS, has been the most mice use-inducing out of all the UEFI implementations we’ve ever had. Certainly a great looking UEFI, it boasts a bevy of features not found on other UEFI implementations.
[/tab] [/tabs]TEST SETUP
| Processor | Intel Ivy Bridge Core i7 3770K 3.5Ghz (Turbo up to 3.9Ghz) |
| Motherboards | MSI Z77A-GD65, ASUS ROG Maximus V GENE, Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H, Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H-WB, ECS Z77H2-A2X Golden Board |
| Cooling | Corsair H80 (Maximum Fan Speed) |
| Power Supply | Silverstone Strider Plus ST65F-P 650W |
| Memory | Kingston HyperX T1 DDR3-2400 |
| Video Cards | ASUS HD7870 DirectCUII |
| Hard Drive | Kingston HyperX SSD 120GB |
| Operating System | Windows 7 64-bit SP1 |
PERFORMANCE
[tabs tab1=”SANDRA 2011″ tab2=”wPrime” tab3=”CineBench” tab4=”SuperPI” tab5=”3DMark 06″ tab6=”3DMark Vantage”] [tab]SiSoft’s SANDRA is a benchmarking, testing and system information application which provides plenty of options in gaining information regarding your system. For this test, we gauge the raw computational power of the CPU with the Processor Arithmetic benchmark based on the Whetstone and Dhrystone test. Both tests run completely within the processor so it gives a good picture of how a processor performs.
[singlepic id=9780 w=550 h=600 float=center]Since we’ve got a bevy of comparative results here, we’ll keep the commentaries to a minimum and leave the conclusions up to you.
[/tab] [tab]wPrime is a multi-threaded benchmarking application designed to measure the raw computational power of a CPU. It can be configured to run on a custom number of threads to accommodate multi-core CPUs.
[singlepic id=9782 w=550 h=600 float=center] [/tab] [tab]Maxon offers a nice benchmark tool called Cinebench which really stresses your entire system to render a very complex scene. The output score is completely unique to Cinebench but allows us to have a rough idea of how the CPU works with 3D rendering tasks.
[singlepic id=9781 w=550 h=600 float=center] [/tab] [tab]SuperPI is another benchmarking tool that utilizes the pure computational power of a CPU. This test however is purely single-threaded and shows us the performance of a single core which gives us a good picture of how a processor performs on similar tasks.
[singlepic id=9798 w=550 h=600 float=center] [/tab] [tab]3D Mark06 is a benchmarking software designed to measure the performance of a system in DirectX9 applications. The test has long been updated with newer version of the software for more modern use but the CPU test is still relevant and still gives us a good image of system performance by loading the CPU with logic, path-finding and physics computation tasks.
[singlepic id=9790 w=550 h=600 float=center] [/tab] [tab]3DMark Vantage is the successor to 3DMark 06 and is targeted for DirectX10 compliant devices. Similar to our 3DMark 06 test, we only take the CPU scores using the Performance preset.
[singlepic id=9789 Â w=550 h=600 float=center] [/tab] [/tabs]WORKLOAD TESTS
[tabs tab1=”Video Conversion” tab2=”Compression” tab3=”Image Resize” tab4=”x264 HD Benchmark”] [tab]We use a 150MB 1080p MP4 video and convert it to standard iOS format using Xilisoft Video Converter. GPU acceleration is disabled and conversion is purely done by the CPU.
[singlepic id=9785 w=550 h=600 float=center] [/tab] [tab]We use WinRAR 4.0 on default settings to compress 3340 files of varying types including MP3s, various images and documents for a total of 2.40GB of data. [singlepic id=9787 w=550 h=600 float=center] [/tab] [tab]We resize 3,030 varying images of different formatsand sizes (a total of 883MB) to our standard 1200×900 resolution and note the time it takes to finish up the batch job.
[singlepic id=9783 w=550 h=600 float=center] [/tab] [tab]X264 HDÂ is a free benchmarking tool that shows the performance of a system by converting a 720p video clip.
[singlepic id=9784 w=550 h=600 float=center] [/tab] [/tabs]GAME TESTS
[tabs tab1=”Unigine Heaven 3.0″ tab2=”3DMark 11″ tab3=”Civilization V” tab4=”Battlefield 3″] [tab]Ungine’s Heaven benchmark is a DirectX application designed to measure the performance of a system in game-like loads.
[singlepic id=9786 w=550 h=600 float=center] [/tab] [tab]3DMark 11 is the most recent iteration (not counting the version for the upcoming Windows 8) of the popular benchmarking software from Futuremark. For this test we run the Performance preset of the benchmark which comes with the free version of 3DMark 11 which should present a more reproducible scenario for a lot of people.
[singlepic id=9788 w=550 h=600 float=center] [/tab] [tab]The benchmark modes in Civilization5 are designed to stress and test various aspects of the users hardware and supporting software. This benchmark is designed to simulate a late game workload as it exercises all aspects of the game engine pipeline since all simulation and renderable object types are represented at a frequency consistent with a game that has been in progress for 300+ turns. We capture the full render score for our comparison graphs.
[singlepic id=9791 w=550 h=600 float=center] [/tab] [tab]Battlefield 3 is the latest intallment in the highly-acclaimed FPS franchise from EA. Battlefield 3 puts players in modern combat situations with highly detailed environment and in-game graphics, whose Ultra detail settings, can bring most systems to their knees. Graph results are for average FPS.
[singlepic id=9792 w=550 h=600 float=center] [/tab] [/tabs]OVERCLOCKING
[tabs tab1=”Maximum CPU Clock” tab2=”Maximum Base Block” tab3=”Maximum Memory Clock”] [tab] [singlepic id=9795 w=550 h=600 float=center] [/tab] [tab] [singlepic id=9797 w=550 h=600 float=center] [/tab] [tab] [singlepic id=9796 w=550 h=600 float=center] [/tab] [/tabs]MSI is certainly way up there when it comes to OC potential.
TEMPERATURE & POWER CONSUMPTION
We check to see how motherboard makers tune their default BIOS settings and see how it impacts temperatures and power consumption. The system is left to idle for 30 minutes before readings are taken and load data is taken 30 minutes while Prime95 blend test is running. Power readings are taken for the entire system from the socket.
[singlepic id=9793 w=550 h=600 float=center] [singlepic id=9794 w=550 h=600 float=center]The Z77A-GD65 tops our charts when it comes to load consumption and ties for best spot for idle power. Temps also look good as the board ties for 2nd place in our Z77 round-up chart.
CONCLUSION
MSI certainly has one hell of a good-looking product with the Z77A-GD65. Packed with features we’ve come to expect from a board in this range, it’s got everything a mid-range motherboard should have and more. We’re not sure everyone will agree but we really love how this board looks. Also, the UEFI BIOS overclocking options makes this board a good choice for the OC crowd also.
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Performance-wise, the board is on par with the majority of the boards we tested with the Z77A-GD65 even managing to close the gap with the ASUS ROG solution. Other than that though, the board is pretty much vanilla Z77 with a few add-ons. It’s certainly got the looks but nothing really special to set it apart from the competition. Pitting the board against GIGABYTE’s Wi-Fi and BT-enabled UD5H, the GD65 certainly gets our vote for looks but the connectivity options of the UD5H certainly makes it the better option.
Priced at around Php10,900, the MSI Z77A-GD65 competes with GIGABYTE’s UD5H, ECS’ A2X and a couple more boards each one brandishing its own kind of appeal to users making this portion of the market a game of features or looks. Where as the competition banks on either, MSI’s Z77A-GD65 provides a more balanced solution pitting in gamer looks, overclocking options and quality in one package and at less cost. If you have a thing for MSI or if this board appeals to you, then you’re certainly looking at a considerable product and we can easily recommend it. The MSI Z77A-GD65 currently sits right below the lower-midrange making a good choice if you’re looking for that balance of OC and gaming appeal. We give it our Value award.
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